


Material Witness—Message in a Bottle [Set during The Fifth Bullet 2 x 11 and late season 2]

by Polly_Lynn



Series: Material Witness [6]
Category: Castle
Genre: Angst, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-20
Updated: 2014-06-20
Packaged: 2018-02-05 11:56:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1817638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polly_Lynn/pseuds/Polly_Lynn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He likes when she wears <em>real</em> jewelry. Pretty things and bold pieces. Impractical and probably against some regulation or other. That's probably what he likes most: The defiance. A sliver of the wild child that was peeking through."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Material Witness—Message in a Bottle [Set during The Fifth Bullet 2 x 11 and late season 2]

**Author's Note:**

> This is the fifth in a serious of loosely linked one-shots that can be read independently and in any order you like.  
> 
> 
> Unlike Castle, I _don't_ like when Beckett wears jewelry on the job. Having grown up around cops, it just strikes me as wrongitty wrong. And for whatever reason, she wears a bunch of it near the end of season 2 (I blame Demming and his weird mandibular region), so that detail caught my attention here.
> 
> * * *

  


_2009_

He likes when she wears jewelry on the job. Beyond the watch. Her mother's ring. Those are part of the uniform, really. Her armor.

He likes when she wears _real_ jewelry. Pretty things and bold pieces. Impractical and probably against some regulation or other.

That's probably what he likes most: The defiance. A sliver of the wild child that was peeking through. Not gone yet. Not all gone.

But that's not all. He's not just looking for the distant past. Excavating the woman he never knew. That's part of it, but it's not the whole story.

He likes when she wears jewelry because she's fading. He feels like she's been fading all these months since he's been back. Since she let him come back.

It's not just with him. At first he assumed . . . he figured it was just him. What he'd done. That she might have let him come back, but she hadn't forgotten what he'd done and she certainly hadn't forgiven him.

But it's not just with him. He watches her with Esposito. With Ryan. Even with Lanie, she's fading, and he lives for these every-once-in-a-while flashes of silver or gold. The hints of jewel-bright color. He latches on to them like signs. Like evidence. Proof she's still in there. The woman he did know. The woman he could have known.

He likes when she wears jewelry, and the charm catches his eye. Something about that one in particular draws him. The way the top serif bows its head. The proud, straight back of it.

The slightly-too-eager saleswoman says something and he turns. She's looking at him expectantly.

"I'm sorry?" He tries not to sound annoyed, though he is, a little. At her or himself, he's not sure.

"You don't speak Russian?" The saleswoman gestures to the charm in his hand.

_Oh._ How did it get in his hand?

He shakes his head. At her. At the charm. At himself. "No."

"Cyrillic alphabet," she says as she sweeps a finger down the turning display. She taps the hint of silver in his hand. "Letter _B_."

He smiles at her, wide enough to startle them both, and tells her he'll take it.

* * *

They accumulate in fits and starts, and he has half a dozen of them before he knows it. A tiny pair of silver cuffs that really open and close. A deconstructed subway token with _GOOD FOR_ separated from _ONE FARE_ by a violent twist of the metal that appeals to him.

He doesn't take them all. There are things that make it into his hands that he doesn't take. There's a quill pen. Absolutely beautifully done in silver, the chevrons of the feather fanning out, delicate light shining through the minuscule gaps. But he puts it back. It's him, not her. A stubborn part of him insists it's _them._ It's both of them. He drops the charm and hurries away.

He finds a tiny set of muses. All nine in one store on a day he's not even looking. Not that he's ever looking. He's just likes when she wears jewelry, and he thinks . . . he's not sure what he thinks. Mostly he's trying not to think, because she's fading.

He loves the little muses. They're offbeat. Unexpected with their cheeky smiles under stiff, classical curls and the precisely rendered drape of fabric around them. He can't take them all. He doesn't want them all. Calliope is the obvious choice. Epic poetry. He pictures her rolling her eyes at that and he grins.

But it's Erato he can't take his eyes off. She's seated, her lyre in her lap and her head tipped down dreamily. There's passion in every silvery line and he can't take his eyes off her. He holds on to them both for a long time. One charm in each hand. He holds them for a long time, then sets them back on to the velvet. Nudges them back in place alongside their sisters.

He leaves them.

* * *

He doesn't know why this case is hitting him so hard. He doesn't want to know why. It's simple enough if he gives it any thought at all, but he doesn't. He doesn't want to give it any thought at all.

He empathizes with J. Who wouldn't? To be set adrift like that. To have every single tie to the world snipped to be set utterly adrift. It's awful. Of course, it's awful. But it's hitting him harder than it should.

It's his worst fear, losing his mind. That's easy enough to face here and now. Or it's familiar, anyway. He's spent enough nights lying awake with it—stroke, dementia, traumatic brain injury—all the terrible ways he could lose his mind and keep on going. His body could keep on going, and the thought of that is terrifying.

But amnesia. He's never thought about it, and that astonishes him. He's thought of everything. Every melodramatic plot twist that might get him out of a corner. Every soap opera conceit that he might wring a few chapters out of when nothing will come.

But he's never thought of this, and it knocks him back. It makes him afraid. Like he's lost so much time. Like he should have been worrying all along and now it's hurrying toward him. It makes him afraid.

It's not about him. He's not afraid for himself. There's so much that anchors him. Alexis. His mother. The books and news stories. Years of journals. Terrible plots and character sketches and somber moments, joyful moments, all of them committed to paper somewhere. All of them with weight and substance. Matter, anyway. Physical matter. He can't quite believe the pieces of him could ever be scattered for good.

It's her he's afraid for. She lives so much of her life inside. Hiding and bricking herself in. And she walks in the world so cautiously. There's so little of her here. Such faint traces that it makes him want to write and write. To commit _her_ to paper. All of her. It makes him want to shake her. Beg her to tell him. Tell him everything.

But she won't.

She doesn't.

She's fading.

* * *

He finds the coffee cup on the second day of the case. They've found the dog and identified Jeremy Preswick and he breathes a little easier. He finds the coffee cup and it starts to come together.

He worries about the charm. This one. He worries that it's a little too sentimental. A little too intimate, but he can't put it down. A tiny take-out coffee cup that opens on a hinge. He peers into the interior and there's something inside. A scrap of paper and it all comes together.

He asks about the paper, but the girl behind the counter doesn't really know. She digs up the artist's card and hands it over. He thanks her and pays for the charm. He peels his coat back and slips it into the coin pocket of his jeans, safe in its plastic sleeve. He breathes easier.

He dashes off an email to the artist on his way to her. He stops by the usual truck for their coffee and smiles wide at the barista. He's seen him a few times, but doesn't really know him. The kid looks a little confused as he stutters the order back to him. Castle tells him he got it just right and shoves a fist full of bills into the tip jar.

The kid is too stunned to answer, but he calls after him. Says he'll have his coffees ready just this way. Just this time tomorrow.

Castle turns. Jogs a few steps backwards and salutes with one coffee cup. He turns back and he's on his way to her.

* * *

The artist's name is Celia, and she thinks he's crazy. Eventually she thinks he's crazy. At first? He doesn't know what she thinks at first. But when he says he'll pay her—a charm and a message for each—he'll pay her for both for each one of them. And he'll pay her to teach him. Then she thinks he's crazy.

But she says she'll do it.

And by the time Jeremy Preswick and his dog and his ex-wife/new girlfriend are walking off into the sunrise, he has all the supplies.

He hates it at first. His hands are clumsy. Used to big, bold gestures. Built for manic speed and flair, not for this. Not for this.

He wants to love it. All the accoutrements. Ink bottles, minute brushes, and care. So much care and patience.

He spoils the first dozen. Spoils another half dozen and thinks about giving up. Having Celia do it. But she shepherds him along and finally— _finally_ —he comes away with it done right. Tiny, even letters in his own hand.

_T Sk L SF Van. x 2_

Celia grins when he pulls back. She nudges the little scrap this way and that with her nail and pronounces it perfect as she sets on glassine to dry. She tells him he'll have to wait at least a day to roll it and place it inside the charm. He blushes a little and tells her that's fine. _That's fine._

She lines up the other charms skeptically. The ones he's brought with him—the ones he already had—and the ones he wants from her. It's quite the assemblage.

A tiny glass bottle with a tinier cork. A silver scroll that opens when you turn the ribbon. His favorite: A hollowed out book that spreads open along a hidden seam. A hollow wooden cylinder seal that Celia blushes over. The hieroglyphics are nonsense, she admits. She just liked the images together, and he does, too. He likes the carvings. The way they flow into each other. Pictures of things or beautiful geometry, depending on how he looks at it. The outside is lovely enough, and he wants the message to be his. Whatever it turns out to be, he wants it to be from him to her, and it doesn't matter what's on the outside.

Celia asks if he's sure he really wants them all. She says the bracelet will weigh a ton. He blinks at her.

_A bracelet_.

_Oh_.

Of course that's what it is—what it will be—but he hadn't thought of it that way. He likes when she wears jewelry but he hadn't thought of it that way. Hadn't thought of it circling her elegant wrist, the charms tinkling as she goes about her day. But that's what it is. What it will be. And when it's ready, he'll ask Celia to put it together.

He looks down at the charms. Little soldiers in a row, and he can't give any of them up right now. He can't give up a single thing about her. He'll figure something out when it's ready, even if he doesn't know what ready means.

He looks up and realizes that Celia is staring at him. She's waiting for his answer and he says yes. He wants them all.

For now, he does. He has so much to say about her. To say to her.

Even if he doesn't know what it is yet, he has so much to say.

* * *

He fills them up, the charms. He fills them and goes back for more. Commissions pieces from Celia—a Chinese take-out container, a gun with a little flag that unfurls from the barrel. _Bang!_ and something else. Something true about her. Celia laughs at him. She laughs at him, but she comes through every time.

He ruins a hundred little parchments along the way. Not because he's messy. Not because he can't make his hands do what he wants. He has the technique down, and an unfamiliar stillness comes over him every time. He's come to love it. The ritual. Every time he has that tiny brush in his hand, he's clear and calm and still, the picture of her in his mind.

He ruins them because he argues with himself. He can't stop arguing with himself. And it feels like cheating, but he finds another ink, paper that's just a little heavier and takes a lot more patience to roll up tight, and he writes on both sides.

It feels like cheating, but he argues with himself and it's a compromise. The revelation of her favorite color becomes a confession of the colors he loves on her. The light he loves her in. He has her standard Chinese order written out, but can't help adding that it's better from New China Red than Mr. Chow's.

He devises a code to cram her favorite book titles on to a single scrap and can't resist commentary. Jibes and suggestions and getting his own word in edgewise. It's hard on his code.

It's hard on _him_ , but he comes to love that, too. There's a freedom in the exercise. Taking the complexity of her and pulling a single thread. A single element of her clear in his mind. Reducible to a handful of tiny letters. There's satisfaction in it. The distillation. The stark truth of things rolled up tight and tucked away for safe keeping.

He wants it to be about her. Essential Beckett in case of amnesia. More and more, though, everything seems essential. Her tells, her gestures. The little quirks of her body language and the razor-sharp grace that just about kills him every time he sees her in action. He wants to describe them all down to the last detail, so he does. He does.

He wants it to be about her, but more and more it's about them. His hand moves carefully—so carefully—and it's about them.

* * *

He has a rule with himself and he never breaks it. Not at first. At first he breaks the rule and he breaks the charms. Opening and closing them again and again, he breaks three or four things and trails back to Celia with his head hanging and she replaces them. But eventually he knows: He has to make a rule.

He can write all the message he wants. He can write until his fingers are stained and cramped and everything swims around his vision when he looks up from the close work. He can set aside a thousand messages to dry. Glassine littering every surface in his office and he has to retreat to the bed, the living room, the kitchen, to actually write.

He can roll up a thousand messages with careful fingers. Drip the tiny dot of wax to seal them. But once he tucks it away—once a message finds its home inside a charm—he has to leave it. Then it's hers.

He loves that in a different way. The mindfulness. The way he thinks he's done with one, but his hand falters and he knows it's a thing of the moment. True for now, but not for later. Not forever, or not the whole truth, and his mind opens up to her. Opens up for her. To make space for everything she is.

He feels lighter when he does tuck something away. When he slides his nail through the wax to open one. Rereads it and laughs at himself. How little he knew. How little. Or when he opens one and the message keeps. It stands up to time and he nods. Seals it again and finds a home for it. Even when it hurts. Him or her or them. He finds a home for it.

It's done one day. It feels like forever since Jeremy Preswick. With everything—Kyra, Coonan, nearly losing her in so many different ways, worrying that he's losing her still—it feels like forever. But it's been a few months and now it's done. He doesn't know why, but he's no less certain for all that.

He wanders the loft feeling lost. Shoves his phone and his keys and his wallet into his pockets and stumbles out into the paper thin winter sun.

He finds himself outside Celia's studio. Outside the window and he feels foolish. He's turning away when she catches sight of him and takes pity. Her fingers close around his sleeve and she walks inside. She doesn't laugh this time.

She asks if it's time and he nods. Miserable. She doesn't laugh, but she smiles a little as she pats him on the shoulder. She pulls out what they'll need. Lengths of silver chain. Loops and wires and tools. A sketch pad and soft pencil. An oversized artist's gum.

_He_ laughs at that. She expects him to be indecisive, but he's feeling ruthless. It's hard. It will be hard, but not how Celia thinks.

They start and the earliest things—the ones he found first and swept into his hand without a second thought—are musts. There's no question that each of them has a home there.

But there's a break in the timeline. The coffee cup is the last of them. The ones that belong. And he only has three or four spaces left. Even that's pushing it, Celia tells him, and he doesn't know how he can decide. He can't. He _can't_ decide and he wheedles.

He begs Celia for another answer. He weathers her annoyance and pulls it out of her. They'll be a problem. A hassle, and she warns him that they won't be as secure. That the wear and tear of swapping charms in and out of the special loops means a good chance of losing some, but he'll take it. He can't decide and he tells her he'll take it.

* * *

_2013_

It isn't how he imagined giving this to her. He's not sure what he imagined, but every line of her body curved and sloping with defeat was never a part of it.

It all ends today. Maybe. Probably. Gates knows and it all ends.

The box is in his hand before he realizes it, and the moment resonates. He remembers looking down at the palm of his own hand. Surprised to find the little glint of silver there and the sense of rightness when he realized what it was. He remembers the hours with Celia teaching him. The hours alone. He remembers knowing her. Bringing her down to earth with ink and paper and care and fixing her there. By his side in whatever way he could have her.

There's a smart bow around the box. Silver, too, and he remembers that, too. The satisfaction of tying it. Patting the lid into place and tugging the knot just so and slotting the long, slim lines of the box into place with the others. Just a few then, but a tidy pile. Growing all the time. A satisfying moment of stillness. Certainty when certainty was so very hard to come by.

It's in his hand as he turns away from the closet. She's sitting on the foot of the bed, hands in her lap, staring at nothing. Her shoulders rise and fall with the mattress, unresisting, as he settles in behind her. At right angles. He sets the box along his thigh and has a single second thought.

Maybe she doesn't need this today. The weight of his rendition of her. Of them. Who they were four long years ago.

But he likes when she wears jewelry and he wants her to wear this today. He wants her to be defiant and sure of who she is. Sure of who they are, whatever happens.

He draws his knees up on to the bed and rises behind her. Slides one hand up her shoulder blade. Trails his fingertips over the arc of skin above her collar and curls his palm around the strong slope of muscle under the softness of her sweater. She brings her arm across her body and finds his fingers. Dips her chin to press them closer to her body. They're quiet a moment before he passes the box to her over her other shoulder.

Her head swivels toward him and her look is sharp. There's fire there and he's glad. It all ends today. Maybe it ends, but not without a fight. She'll fight for him.

"What's this?" The words are sharp, too, and his spirits rise a little more.

"Armor, maybe?" He shrugs and taps the box. "Open it."

She tugs at the bow. Mutters about how he has to complicate everything and slaps his hand away when he tries to "help." Finally, she hooks a strong finger under a long loop and tugs. Snaps the ribbon and scrabbles at the lid. Eager, though she'd never admit it.

Her brow furrows and smooths. She takes it in her fingers and stretches it out. Holds it up to the light and lets her eyes travel over it. She catches the cyrillic character with her nail and smiles. The sound rolls off her tongue, softly. The cuffs make her laugh and she knocks his head with hers. She tells him not to hover, but doesn't do anything about it.

She comes to the shipwreck bottle first. The clear glass and tiny cork draw the eye even with the flash of silver. She peers at the loop. Realizes it's different from the others—some of the others—and looks to him for confirmation. It's essentially a tiny carabiner. He nods and she presses on the spring. Eases the bottle off the loop and works the cork out with gentle fingers.

Celia warned him he might need tools. That the tight little cylinders might resist, but this one tips out easily. She looks at him again and he's grinning. She gives him an annoyed look and breaks the seal. He offers his palm and she unfurls the paper on it.

She bends over it and reads aloud. "Favorite color: Purple."

She looks at him again and he tries to keep his face neutral. She's trying not to smile as she takes the corner between her fingers and turns the tiny scrap of paper over.

"Beautiful in red." He says from memory. Says it in her ear and brushes his cheek over the soft material of her sweater. It's true. She's beautiful in it. Her war colors.

She takes the paper from his palm and rolls it up again. His mouth opens, Celia's instructions bubbling up, but she does it perfectly, of course. Tight and neat and it doesn't even need the seal. It goes back into the bottle and keeps it shape, like it wouldn't dare do otherwise.

She taps the others. The ones that have something hidden inside. She taps them and chews her lip. Deciding. She goes for the coffee cup next, and the shorthand order wins him a quick smile and a kiss.

And then there's the book. He knows it's coming. Remembers his hands shaking when he fixed it in place. The last thing—the very last thing before he pinned the bracelet to the cotton wool and arranged the orphan charms around it to wait their turn.

She frowns at it for half a second. Turns it from one side to the other and finds the seam. Gives a delighted little laugh at the way the spine creaks open. He kisses her jaw. He can't help it. He loves that she loves it, too, but she shoos him away.

It's folded, this one, and she undoes each crease with infinite care. She lets her eyes skim over the letters as they come to light. Out of order. A puzzle and then it's done. Unfolded and the right side is up—the first side. She gives him her tight-lipped smile. The one that goes with the hard, not-entirely-fond glint behind her eyes: _You like me. (Really.)_

"Sometimes," she says as she absently pats his cheek. "Sometimes."

He reaches out for the paper. Her free hand comes up to bat his away, but something—his breath, the straightening of his spine, tension all along his arm—something stops her, and she lets him turn it over. Lets him bury his face in her neck and whisper the words from all that time ago: _I love you. (I think.)_

  



End file.
